Improving the salinity tolerance of wheat genotypes by using diallel cross

Salinity is one of the most important environmental factors that severely inhibit plant growth. To improve the salinity tolerance of wheat through diallel cross, six modified genotypes (Arta, Bezvestia, Koohdasht, Moghan3, Ohadi, and Star), 15 hybrids of crossing these genotypes (Bezvestia×Koohdasht, Bezvestia×Ohadi, Bezvestia×Moghan3, Bezvestia×Arta, Bezvestia×Star, Koohdasht×Ohadi, Koohdasht×Moghan3, Koohdasht×Arta, Koohdasht×Star, Ohadi×Moghan3, Ohadi×Arta, Ohadi×Star, Moghan3×Arta, Moghan3×Star, Arta×Star) in two levels of salinity (0. 20 ds.m-1), were sown in greenhouse as a factorial experiment in a completely randomized design with three replications. The estimation of electrical conductivity of water and inlet solutions and water output from the pot had been lasted for two weeks, and followed by traits such as leaf relative water content, osmotic regulation, seed yield, 100 seed weight, seed number per spike, and activity of catalase and peroxidase enzymes were measured. The results of the experiment showed that with increasing salinity, the traits related to the yield and relative content of water of wheat bread leaf decreased significantly. The traits related to yield and relative content of leaf water in Arta and Ohadi genotypes showed the highest decrease in stress conditions than control, while the progenies obtained from the cross between these two sensitive genotypes showed a significant decrease in the traits related to yield. The rate of activity of a catalase-peroxidase enzyme in stress conditions in the crossroads caused by the confluence of Bezostaya and Kohdasht due to heterozygosity in both parents that resulted in resistance to stress conditions. Considering the superiority of heterozygosity through intelligent crossings, it can be taken measures to improve the salt tolerance of herbs.